In Russia, new suspect detained in Politkovskaya's slaying

New
York, August 24, 2011--The Committee to Protect
Journalists welcomes the detention of a new suspect in the murder of Novaya Gazeta journalist Anna Politkovskaya, left, who was shot in her apartment building in 2006.

The suspect, retired Lt. Col. Dmitry
Pavlyuchenkov, is said to have formed a criminal group tasked with killing her,
and the journalist's colleagues hope he can help lead to the mastermind of the
slaying.

"We
welcome this new, significant development in the investigation into the murder
of our colleague Anna Politkovskaya and commend the Investigative Committee of
the Russian Federation for its persistent work toward bringing this case to a
successful end," CPJ Europe and Central Asia Program Coordinator Nina Ognianova said. "We now call on investigators to
continue building on their progress until all involved in the heinous crime--particularly
its masterminds--are brought to justice."

The
Investigative Committee of the Russian
Federation--the agency tasked with solving
Politkovskaya's murder--announced on Tuesday night that
it had detained Pavlyuchenkov on suspicion of having organized the crime.
According to the committee, the colonel is suspected of receiving payment for
organizing the journalist's murder and of forming the group to carry it out. The
group included brothers Ibragim and Dzhabrail Makhmudov (the former defendants
in the case, who were acquitted by a jury in February 2009), a
third Makhmudov brother, Rustam (who was arrested on May 31 and indicted on June 2 as the suspected gunman
in the killing), and other unidentified persons.

Pavlyuchenkov
worked as the head of surveillance at Moscow's
Main Internal Affairs Directorate, the city's main police force, at the time
that he purportedly organized Politkovskaya's murder, the Investigate Committee
said. In this capacity, he allegedly ordered surveillance of the journalist to
ascertain her whereabouts and usual routes around Moscow,
an official statement on the committee's
websitesays. Pavlyuchenkov then
allegedly obtained a gun, which was to become the murder weapon, planned the
logistics of the crime, and distributed the tasks among the various
accomplices, the statement says. The Investigative Committee did not identify
the mastermind or all of the suspected perpetrators of the murder, but
declared: "The investigation has information of the suspected mastermind of the
crime. However, the investigation considers publicizing this information to be
premature."

Sergei
Sokolov, deputy editor of Novaya Gazeta,
said the detention of the suspected organizer of Politkovskaya's killing might
help the search for the mastermind behind it. "When not only low-level
executors but the suspected organizers and the suspected gunman are on trial,
then we can have a serious prosecution that could lead to the finding of the
mastermind," Sokolov told the local press.

Politkovskaya,
a special correspondent for Novaya Gazeta, was well known for her
investigative reports on human rights abuses in Chechnya--stories
that led to multiple threats on her life. In her seven years covering the second
Chechen war, the journalist's reporting repeatedly drew the wrath of Russian
authorities. She was threatened, jailed, forced into exile, and poisoned during her career, CPJ
research shows. On October 7, 2006, a man in a baseball
cap shot her dead in the elevator of her Moscow
apartment house.